The Very Odd Courtship of Molly Hooper
by letscallitink
Summary: Just when Sherlock realized that he couldn't do without Molly, Molly realized that she could get along perfectly well without Sherlock. And so began the very odd, somewhat dangerous, and mostly disastrous courtship of Molly Hooper by a man who didn't have a clue what he was doing. (In which the author turns the entire series sideways with "what if?" and creates a rom-com.)
1. It Started Here

**I haven't had any Sherlock inspiration for a long time, but suddenly, I do.**

 **NOTE: This story will be told in many short scenes and probably won't be regularly updated, but I promise that it will be good fun full of fluff, angst, delicious misunderstandings, Sherlock's awkward yet strangely adorable romantic attempts, and umbrellas.**

 **The One and Only Disclaimer: I don't own it.** ** _Obviously_** **.**

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 **One: It Started Here**

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Whatever made Sherlock come to the realization that he could not do without Molly Hooper, no one ever knew. I certainly didn't, and I still don't. Perhaps not even _Sherlock_ knew exactly what it was, but how one comes into possession of the facts is not nearly as important as the facts themselves. At least, that's what Sherlock thought on this particular matter, and it was most likely because he didn't want to think about how he came into possession of the facts. It is, after all, a serious blow to one's pride when one realizes that he has been embarrassingly wrong about something, which Sherlock certainly was. He had been wrong about Molly.

 _Very_ wrong. (And, one day, I will be very happy to remind him that I told him so.)

He had thought her to be simple and shy, easily swayed and quick to roll over if anyone commanded it of her. She was a loyal dog at best and a timid mouse at worst, and certainly not an attractive character in any way. Physically, perhaps, she might be seen as _somewhat_ attractive, but Sherlock did not care and, therefore, Sherlock did not see. There was a lot that Sherlock didn't see, actually, although he never would have thought it to be true at the time.

While the true tipping point cannot be exacted, Sherlock could certainly remember how it _started_. Data pileup always started somewhere, and with Molly, it started in the morgue. To put this into perspective for you, I can say that Sherlock had solved quite a few cases and made himself a well-known figure at the Yard, but it was still long before any of them had ever heard of John Watson.

It was Sally Donovan, _again_. Donovan _rarely_ blessed St. Bart's with her _shining_ presence, but when she did, it usually happened that Sherlock was also there, and whenever Sherlock was there, Molly was always there as well (and there was no coincidence in any of this, if you were wondering).

It was just the three of them. Donovan was there to, as she put it, make a report. Sherlock knew that it was actually more along the lines of keeping an eye on him for Lestrade while simultaneously making transparent jabs at his character. These things were things that he was used to, and these things were things that he hated. In fact, the only thing about this situation that he didn't hate was Molly, and it wasn't as if he _liked_ her. He simply did not find her offensive, and that was very different from _like_. He didn't like anybody.

It went as it always did. Donovan was blatantly offensive to him and thoughtlessly dismissive of Molly from the moment they arrived at St. Bart's. Molly did not rise to the bait, and Sherlock's insults towards Donovan were wrapped in sarcasm drier than jerky and then smacked across Donovan's face like a wet fish. Before the end of it, if there _was_ a designated end, Molly had actually taken a few steps back and was watching them with wide eyes. Sherlock was too busy with his gloved hands tangled in a cadaver's lower intestines to notice.

But then Donovan tacked the word 'freak' onto the end of one of her dull, vaguely discourteous sentences, and Sherlock realized that it was the forty-sixth time that day that she had called him a freak. That was a new record.

Sherlock carefully extricated himself from the corpse's remains and said that he would be right back. And he meant it, he truly did, but just as he was out the door, he heard:

"Do you _ever_ shut up?"

That was Molly's voice, carrying softly across St. Bart's cold, smooth, disinfected surfaces. Sherlock let the door swing nearly-shut behind him and paused, stepping just enough to the side so that he wouldn't be seen through the windows. He had never heard Molly sound so assertive. In fact, he had never heard her sound assertive at all. It completely contradicted his observations of her character. This was worth some eaves-dropping.

"Ex _cuse_ me?" Donovan again, voice arching like a cat's back. She sounded just as prickly as usual, although there was a reason for it, this time. Molly had, after all, basically just told the woman to shut up, which was something that Sherlock had never heard anyone, with the exception of himself, dare to do. Donovan got rankled if someone _looked_ at her wrong. It was no surprise that she puffed up at a little thing like Molly challenging her (and wasn't _that_ a surprise?).

"Why are you always saying that sort of thing?" Molly asked. Her voice was just as soft as it always was, whispering as though she was afraid that she might disturb the forever-after sleep of the dead. "He's not hurting you."

Donovan scoffed out a harsh sound that was practically a bark compared to Molly's dove-y cooing. "He shows us all up. Shows _you_ up, too. He's better at your job than you are."

There was a beat of silence in which Sherlock could imagine Molly quirking her eyebrow sharply, as she sometimes did when she was on the edge of not being so agreeable. "You're mean because you're jealous?"

Sherlock had, once, before he decided Molly to be dull, wondered if the girl had higher powers of observation than most. She, even when seemingly engrossed in her work, always knew when he was in the lab, even though he rarely announced his presence. She remembered how he liked his coffee even though he had never actually told her, she remembered which cadavers he had worked with the day before even though he didn't mark them, and she was always ready when he needed something even if he hadn't hinted to needing anything at all before. Either she was painstakingly polite, or she was smarter than average. Before, Sherlock had thought nothing of it, but he was beginning to think that she was both those things.

Instead of answering the question, Donovan went on the offensive. "I'm _mean_? Because I'm– Ha! What are you, five?"

"Are _you_?" Molly sounded well and truly puzzled, but Sherlock could detect a vicious scrape of sharp accusation in her tone. "I've never met such a bully."

"Listen here, _missy_ –"

"No, _you_ listen," Molly snapped, or she snapped as much as one could snap without breaking from her constant sub-normal volume. Her voice got hard, though. Not high and not sharp, but hard and cold, like a smooth river stone. "What you do outside of this morgue is not my business, but while you are inside, you are in my territory, and you will be respectful to me and to Sherlock or I will not only toss you out of this building myself, but I will be making a formal report to Detective Inspector Lestrade about your unprofessional behavior, do you understand?"

Sherlock's lips parted in disbelief. He wished that he could peek through the windows and see Molly's face. He wanted to know if her expression was as fierce as her tone. He had never imagined anything so bold in her, so sharp. Not that he had imagined Molly _at all_ , but this was… beyond his skills of deduction. He understood that Bart's was her home base, her personal safety zone, yes, so was this protection of her home ground that he was witnessing? He had many times tromped in and demanded the keys to her kingdom, and she had given them without question. He had never wondered why, though. Had he intimidated her? Apparently not, because Donovan could be intimidating in her own right and Molly didn't sound one bit cowed. Which was, in and of itself, a point of fascination. Sherlock couldn't remember Molly being anything _but_ cowed, but now, she was… well, she was practically a different person. Molly's ever-soft voice was heavy with authority and stinging with the promise of consequences. No one was going to cross Molly Hooper today, not even Sherlock Holmes himself.

"Of course," Donovan said, voice tight and pitching, and that was when Sherlock noticed the blood from his gloves dripping onto the floor.

"Blast," he muttered, sneering at his red-stained gloves.

And that was where it started. But that was years ago.

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 **This is just writing practice for me, so I appreciate feedback.**


	2. The Sherlock Who Stole Christmas

**I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, but I'm already working on the third chapter and that one's already to my liking, so if this one is lack, I hope the next one will make up for it.**

 **Note: No, the narrator is not John. I'm debating as to whether or not I'll** ** _ever_** **reveal the narrator, since it's not actually relevant to the plot. Who knows?**

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 **Two: How the Sherlock Stole Christmas**

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Since the Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox (that's what Sherlock called it), Sherlock had half-ruined himself on a drug-binge. During that time, Sherlock did not see Molly at all, and though it will probably not please you to know, Sherlock didn't even think of her. Despite her sudden spike in study value (behavioral study, that is), she was not relevant to him or his current predicament of being completely and totally stoned. He didn't erase her from his mind – no, she was his best and most legal way of accessing cadavers, after all. But Sherlock Holmes went about five months without Molly Hooper even crossing his mind.

And then he got clean.

Let's not be quixotic about this and accuse Sherlock of any noble behavior of which he was not guilty: it wasn't on purpose. There was no willpower involved and no striving need to get his shambled life back together. He simply ran out of drugs and out of money and he found himself sobering unpleasantly in a cold and uncomfortable place from which he wanted to escape as quickly as possible. He _wanted_ drugs, though. He wanted to get clean just about as much as you or I might want a root canal. But, that simply wasn't possible.

It was with a muddled brain and the sensation of bugs crawling over every inch of his skin that Sherlock stole someone's phone (it was from another druggie who certainly wouldn't _miss_ the phone, but that's no justification), and tried, desperately, to recall the phone number of someone trustworthy. Lestrade came to mind, but Sherlock could hardly call a DI to a drug den. Mycroft was probably the best option, but Sherlock's innards were already burning with the humiliation of having to call for help and bringing _His Brother, the Queen_ into it would only make things worse. And it would get him a lecture. He didn't want a lecture. He just wanted drugs. Of course, he could tell that his run with drugs was over, for the time being, so it would be better to say that he wanted a warm bed and a cup of tea. _[And Redbeard. He wanted Redbeard. He_ _ **always**_ _wanted Redbeard, **forget** the weakness of sentiment.]_

What brought Molly Hooper to mind, I cannot tell you, nor could Sherlock, but he found himself shakily tapping her number into a stranger's mobile. He hadn't even been aware that he knew her number. That was the sort of thing he would typically erase. But he knew it, obviously, because it was her voice that crackled through the speaker.

"Hello?"

Sherlock huffed roughly, trying to gain control over his heavy tongue. "Hoop–… _Molly_."

"… Sherlock?"

She sounded even more surprised by his calling her than he felt.

"I need…" _Help. Help, help, help._ It was not such a difficult thing to say, not for most people, but it felt like acid in Sherlock's mouth. That humiliation burning his insides flared white-hot. "… I require your assistance."

"My– Sherlock, it's been _months_ since anyone's heard from you!" She sounded _right_ on the edge of breaking that soft tone of voice. In fact, she almost sounded angry. This definitely connected to the Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox. "What's going on?"

"Oh, not much," slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. "No, I– no. Get a cab, would you?"

"What? A cab to where?"

It took Sherlock a great deal of effort to remember where he was, but he _did_ remember, and he told Molly, who curtly said that she would come for him before she hung up. Sherlock was grateful, as much as he could be, that she had not decided to try and stay on the phone with him. He vomited on the bare floor, and would have continued to do so had his stomach not been empty, so he proceeded to dry-heave painfully. His dizzy brain and muddled depth-perception sent him reeling across the room when he tried to stand. He fell awkwardly onto his side and stayed there.

 _Adverse reactions_ , he thought to himself drearily, trying to blink the heavy feeling out of his eyes and failing, _to a dangerous mix of drugs and an empty stomach, dehydration, exposure to the elements._ The windows were shattered, allowing all sorts of weather into the musty room. Including, at that very moment, snow. A lot of snow. Sherlock couldn't even remember what month it was, but it was obviously no longer August.

He was still lying on the floor, half-dozing, when Molly Hooper's slender hand gripped his shoulder and gently shook him into full consciousness.

For a moment, Sherlock didn't recognize her. Her eyes were made large and striking by dark but tastefully-applied shadow and mascara. A beige-red combination of lipstick and shining gloss plumped and defined her lips. Blush was well-blended along her cheeks and any flaws in her complexion had been smoothed away. She wore soft grey and bright red, and it was a shocking combination in his eyes, as he had only ever beheld her in a lab coat. She looked beautiful (not that Sherlock cared much for typical feminine beauty, but Molly's appearance wasn't exactly what he would define as typical). She had been somewhere important enough to demand above-average levels of personal grooming and decoration. A party, most likely. She still had diamond earrings in, and a golden ring. He had never seen her wear jewelry before.

It was very likely that he had interrupted her evening, probably a date, and yet, she did not seem irritated with him at all. In fact, she only seemed very, very concerned for him, _and_ completely unaware of her own striking appearance, even though she had obviously put a great deal of effort into making herself look optimally attractive.

Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox: Exhibit B

"Found you," she said with a red, quirking smile _[humorless, this isn't funny, she's trying to be optimistic, how droll]_ , and she helped him right himself with surprising strength. "Alright. Up with you. The cab's waiting and I don't think the driver likes it here. Can't _imagine_ why."

Getting him out of the building was difficult, mostly because it involved walking around other people who were so hazed out that they didn't even notice that anyone was walking over them. Getting him into the cab was less difficult, seeing as he had regained some of his footing at that point, and there are no rickety stairs or passed-out druggies in a cab. There were also no questions asked by Molly, even though Sherlock was waiting for them. In fact, he spent over half the cab ride staring out the window in utter silence, just waiting for Molly to start asking him about every petty detail of the situation. But, she said nothing, and as Sherlock stared out the window, the data on the passing streets came rushing into his brain, and he made his first solid deduction in months.

"It's Christmas," he surmised. The lights, the snow, the abnormal percentage of people wearing holiday-themed clothes, the _children_ – there was more data and it was more substantial to the deduction of it being Christmas day instead of _nearly_ Christmas, but it was too much to process. Sherlock's head hurt. But what he could see combined with Molly's obvious party attire screamed that it was the dreaded Christmas day.

Sherlock did not especially like Christmas. It brought on fewer murders and more pesky suicides, and that was terribly bad for business. Seeing as he didn't find much cheer in the festivities, Christmas left him frightfully bored and irritated with everything. He was not quite a Scrooge, or even a Grinch, no. He had, in the past, truly enjoyed Christmas. Why he no longer did, no one knew the reason, although he had half an idea that he never dared to entertain. He shoved his self-observation into a dark hole in the mind palace and refused to give it any credence. _[He didn't have friends, but if he did, or maybe just one…]_

Molly shook her head. "Christmas Eve, actually. It's not Christmas for another forty-five minutes yet."

"Ah." It was that late? He hadn't even realized.

Then, Molly looked as though she wanted to say something, and Sherlock expected her to finally ask something, anything, but she didn't. She kept her painted mouth shut for the rest of the ride.

Now, at this time, Sherlock was not living on Baker Street. _Where_ he was living, exactly, I can't quite recall, although I do remember it being a cold and unfriendly little place, not suiting Sherlock at all. Molly immediately shared my opinion on it – she _hated_ it. Even the morgue was more welcoming than Sherlock's flat.

Molly helped Sherlock up the steps to the entryway, not because he needed any support but because he was still a bit dizzy and likely to make a misstep. They got from the cab to the door without any incident, and Sherlock was about to dismiss Molly, except that she suddenly said:

"Mycroft contacted me, you know."

Sherlock stumbled, caught himself against the door, and looked back at her. She didn't look like she was joking. No, she looked a bit grim, but she didn't look uncomfortable, which was how most people seemed to feel when it came to his brother. Actually, now that he thought of it, Sherlock was absolutely sure that he had never mentioned Mycroft to Molly, or even told her that he had a brother. But she seemed to know, and that meant that, when Mycroft had kidnapped her in a no-doubt ominous and intimidating way, he had actually bothered to identify himself and explain things to her. Which was unheard of. Mycroft didn't do that.

And that was why Sherlock couldn't really manage to say anything other than: "What?"

The corners of Molly's red lips pulled, but it was neither a smile nor a frown. "I thought you didn't like pointless repetition."

"Some things stand repeating."

That seemed to please Molly, because she smiled, if only slightly. "Well, Mycroft cornered me about two months after you stopped showing up for cases. He asked if I knew where you were. I told him I would be the last person to know." She shrugged, beginning to make her way back down the steps and towards the cab. Then she paused and said, "I suppose I was wrong."

Make of that what you will, because Sherlock could not make heads nor tails of it at all. You, seeing this from the outside, will probably have better luck than he.

And now, I will tell you about Molly Hooper.

She had _not_ been on a date, in case you were wondering. Certainly, not on Christmas Eve, for she was very against it. Romance, she had nothing against, and she was a fair admirer of mistletoe, but as she so often found dates to be disappointing, she avoided taking them up on Christmas or any other holiday. Any romance on any holiday was to be found _inadvertently_ , so that it would be no more than a pleasant surprise to punctuate the day's good cheer. So, no, despite what Sherlock thought, Molly was not on a date. She had, though, been at a Christmas party, which she had only planned to take a quick visit to, if only to make herself seem less like a anti-social shut-in, and then return home to the comfort of her flat.

She had been kept at that party for far too long when she received a call from an unknown number, and when it turned out to be Sherlock, well, that was more than enough of an excuse for her to rush out, claiming an emergency to buffer any unpleasant comments about her lack of social… well, activity. She didn't bother going home to change before going to get him. She didn't think that it mattered, since she was rather sure that Sherlock never noticed anything about her anyway. She, of course, was completely unaware that Sherlock had created a small nook within his mind palace dedicated to the Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox.

She didn't ask him questions. She had a few in mind, but she was mostly sure that she had just about everything figured out. Sherlock's drug problem wasn't all that well known at that point in time, but she had figured it out on her own. The whole business of him being missing for months on end was a surprise, but when he called and she realized what he had done, she wasn't shocked at all.

But the unpleasantness of the party and her knowledge of Sherlock's disreputable habits are irrelevant. What I want to tell you is that, even if she had been happily at home with her cat and a cup of hot cocoa, and even if it had not been nearly midnight and snowing, and even if she hadn't had a clue as to the what or the why of Sherlock's situation, Molly would have gone to help him. Maybe that's not healthy, to be at someone's beck and call even though they don't give a wit about you, or maybe Molly is just an extremely caring person. Perhaps it is a testament to how deeply Molly's crush on Sherlock ran, or maybe she would have done the same for anyone who needed her.

I cannot really tell you how much of this event had to do with Sherlock, or how much of it was actually about Molly. I have no clue. You'll have to judge that for yourself, but don't be too quick about it. After all, this was hardly the beginning.

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 **Big thanks to everyone who reviewed. Again, all my fanfics are a means of writing practice, so I really appreciate feedback.**


	3. The Girl Who Said No

**Like I warned you, this is a series made up of short scenes. Very short.**

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 **Three: The Girl Who Said No**

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Molly was very much aware that she could be too sensitive. She threw her heart into things, cared too much, and took things too hard. She had spent too many showers crying and too many evenings despising the company of all except her cat. Again, she knew all of this and never blamed her emotional boo-boos on anyone else. She very often gave herself a tearful scolding for having gotten so involved, reminding herself that she should have known better and that it always ended like this and that it was her own fault if she got hurt.

That being said, when she felt herself taking a fancy to Sherlock Holmes, it was commendable that she tried to talk herself out of it. She knew, just _knew_ , that nothing good would come out of it. Were she, perhaps, a little more broken and a little less hopeful, she might not have let it go so far.

But she did.

It was a nuisance, really. All of the little details about him stuck to her like burrs. She remembered, without even trying, how he liked his coffee _and_ his tea (she couldn't even remember how she liked her _own_ coffee, half the time). She knew which musicians he seemed to prefer when she played music in the morgue, and she had a whole playlist made up just for him. She knew which instruments he preferred to use when examining bodies, and she kept a clean tray waiting for him. He liked dark colors, not bright ones, but not neutral ones, either, not with that purple shirt of his (she called it the Sexy Purple Shirt in her head, and dreaded the day when her mouth would run ahead of her brain and say that out loud). She even knew about Mycroft, which had to be special, because even _Lestrade_ didn't know about Mycroft, and he was probably closer to Sherlock than anyone else.

For _all of that_ , though, her newest and most irritating problem concerning Sherlock was this: until she had come to his rescue in that drug den, he had not touched her life outside of the morgue.

Sherlock had been an isolated anomaly; someone who she could separate into his own special bubble of reality, quarantined within the morgue so that the rest of her life could not become infected with his presence. Everything she knew about him was irrelevant unless he was present, and he was never present anywhere except for in St. Bart's, and that was fine. She was prepared for that. At certain hours, on certain days, and under certain circumstances, the reality of Sherlock was temporarily brought to life within those grey and white walls. Molly _kept Sherlock_ in that morgue, even within her mind.

But then he called her away from that awful Christmas party and she came to get him from a drug den, in the dark, at nearly-midnight, and he was _real_. The bubble was broken and the reality of Sherlock was no longer contained within the morgue. He broke free and went forth from those confines, and Molly imagined him in other places, in other scenarios.

It was a _problem_.

"Terrible nuisance," Molly informed Reginald, giving the grey cat a scratch behind his ears.

She was at home, which was where she preferred to be, and she was at her most comfortable, sitting in an armchair by false-fire heater and sipping on hot tea while Reginald lay splayed across her lap in the laziest fashion possible. This was Molly at her most comfortable, in fuzzy green socks and a patchy grey sweater. It was her day off and she was glad of it. No Sherlock Holmes was going to change that. She didn't care if he needed something. If he came in wanting a severed arm, or something even less tasteful, someone else would have to deal with him. And if Sherlock couldn't handle that, well, what did she care? Today was for her. There would be no pointless Sherlock Holmes _pining_ on _her day_.

(Actually, there was indeed some mild pining, but it was inadvertent, and as soon as Molly caught herself doing it, she would shake herself free of the thoughts and punctuate the futility of them by reminding herself of one of Sherlock's many flaws. She had listed, thus far, his rudeness, his lack of sensitivity, his tendency to make mean and ill-willed mischief for the sake of experimentation on the psyche of other human beings, his complete lack of regard for human life, his glee for murder, and, most of all, the fact that he didn't give a rat's rump about her.)

Meanwhile, as Molly was enjoying herself and putting Sherlock out of mind, Sherlock was doing the exact opposite.

You might imagine that, after five months of being drugged into such a state that he couldn't comprehend the passing of time, Sherlock might take a while to get back into the swing of things. You would be right, although not for the reason you might expect. He had himself fully functioning in almost no time at all and managed to keep the nature of his disappearance a secret, but it was Lestrade who made things difficult.

Gregory Lestrade was not quite old enough to make himself a father figure to Sherlock, which was a pity, as Sherlock would have benefitted from that sort of relationship. One day, he could be a friend, but that day was a long ways off, and, in the meantime, DI Lestrade was only an authority figure in Sherlock's eyes. That alone was reason enough for Sherlock to rebel, to coil and hiss like a bothered snake. Authority figures gave orders, and Sherlock _did not take orders_. But Lestrade had ordered Sherlock to take some time off, to 'recover'. Sherlock would have happily and purposefully ignored that order, but Lestrade made things difficult by exiling Sherlock from the Yard for at least a month. For thirty-one days, there would be no official cases that Sherlock was allowed to even _see_.

Sherlock hadn't admitted to his drug binge, and there was no real evidence to be found (except for by Molly, who Sherlock trusted to be the soul of discretion, what with her fondness for him and her timid nature keeping her silent on the matter), but Lestrade was no fool. He knew what Sherlock had been doing over the past few months.

Forbidden from taking cases with the Yard and chomping at the bit for something to exercise his mind on (preferably a murder, and a serial killer at best, but that was just a little too ambitious to set his hopes and dreams on), Sherlock set on the next best thing: an experiment. A lengthy and gruesome one would be best, involving dissection, _yes_. That would do the trick, he was sure. And, he was right. A distraction was what he needed until Lestrade allowed him to work on Yard cases again. It would work, as long as he didn't tell Lestrade, who found the dissection of human body parts in Sherlock's kitchen to be disturbing.

And that how Sherlock ended up _unhappy_ and with Molly on his mind. What, you ask? _How so?_

Molly Hooper was the only person in the whole of St. Bart's –in the whole of London, in fact– from whom Sherlock could legally procure human body parts. And Molly was not where she was supposed to be. She was, for the first time since he had become acquainted with her, absent from the morgue.

It was very disconcerting for Sherlock.

No one else there would let him have body parts. They wouldn't let him in the lab, nor would they let him examine any bodies. They just shooed him out the door as politely as they could with strained, falsely contrite smiles, calling him 'Mr. Holmes' and saying that it simply wasn't possible for them to let him have access to such things. They all knew that this wasn't true and that Molly would have let him in without a second thought, but that was not their problem. The employees of St. Bartholomew's _did not_ want Sherlock Holmes around.

Sherlock put up a fuss, threatening them with words of _what Hooper would do when she heard about this_ , but they ignored his protests and escorted him out of the building.

"Blast it," Sherlock hissed under his breath. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his mobile, actions fueled by sheer frustration. He violently scrolled through his contacts, probably pressing his fingers down on the screen a little too hard, until he found the name _Hooper_. (He needed a fix, or a case, and at this rate, getting a fix would be much easier. Or, if he was willing to go through Mycroft giving him dirty looks later [hypocrite], he could buy a pack of smokes.)

 **Where are you? – SH**

The phone offered him no reply. The screen showed no response for a little too long, just long enough for Sherlock to think that this was, indeed, the end, and that he would have to get those smokes after all and just snarl and bear it through Mycroft's hypocritical attitude later. But then a responding text bubbled up with a blipping sound effect.

 **Sherlock? – MH**

 **Obviously – SH** _Who else would be texting you from my phone?_ **Where? – SH**

There was a longer pause this time, probably Molly figuring out what he meant by that, before she replied.

 **You're at the morgue, aren't you? – MH**

 **Kicked out. How long will it take for you to get here? – SH**

 **Day off, Sherlock. – MH** If a text could seem irritated, this one did. Sherlock's imagination ran away from him, and in his mind he saw her pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation while that grey cat [she had never mentioned owning a cat or any pet, but he was sure she had a grey cat, it was the hairs] lounged on her lap. **Don't actually live in the morgue – MH**

The words sparked Sherlock's imagination once more with images of Molly sleeping in a fold-up cot at the back of the lab during an intense study, not going home in favor of dedicating herself to a pressing case. But, such ideas were pure fantasy. There was, in fact, a cot in the back of the lab, but Sherlock didn't know if Molly or anybody had ever used it, much less for the sake of study. Would Molly do that sort of thing, or was she not the sort to sacrifice her comfort for her Work? Was the morgue her Work? Did she have a Work, like he did? Most people didn't, but if anybody should… it seemed to him that Molly would. From what he could tell, especially from the Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox, she had an excellent temperament for dedicating herself to a Work.

 **Just get here. – SH**

 **No. – MH**

Sherlock blinked at the screen of his phone. Molly had never said no to him. Not once, not ever, in all the years they had known each other. She was the eager-to-please puppy, the easily intimidated mouse. She didn't say _no_ to him. When he said _jump_ , she asked _how high?_ That was their relationship. She had come running from what was probably a date on Christmas Eve just to drag his sorry arse out of a drug den, after all. But she had just said _no_ to him without any apology or explanation. Just, _no_.

Maybe she only had the courage to do this over text. Maybe he should have called her so that she would have to hear his voice. Or maybe he just needed to push a _little_ more…

 **There's no time, Hooper. Now. – SH**

There. Maybe that sounded urgent enough.

 **I know Lestrade barred you from consulting Yard cases. Can't be anything that urgent. – MH**

Apparently not.

Sherlock, confused, frustrated, and insulted, shoved his phone into his pocket and trudged away from the morgue. Molly wouldn't be coming for him. He could tell. He didn't have any excuse that he could give that wasn't an outright lie, and there was no lie he had that Molly would believe. She knew his cases too well. She knew _him_. Although, apparently, he didn't know her. He never would have imagined such a blatant rejection from her, not even over something to seemingly small.

He made long, angry strides all the way home and slammed the door shut behind him when he got there.

That was the first time Molly Hooper had ever said no to Sherlock Holmes, and that was the precise moment that Sherlock realized that he did not have complete power over the woman whom he had never considered might have a will of her own.

Molly Hooper Behavioral Paradox: Exhibit C

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